Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates

Centralizing the discussion. Please see the above link for my proposal regarding the WP:FLCR. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:22, 18 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

The Election Commission of India has an archive of past results of elections, but it is geo-fenced to only be accessible within India (example url). I've had a discussion with a reviewer on one of my FLCs regarding this. I've currently used "|url-access=limited" to indicate this geo fencing, but this isn't ideal as it is meant for to show "free access is subject to limited trial and a subscription is normally required", per Template:Citation#Subscription or registration required. The reviewer suggests that I remove this param and use "|url-status=dead" so that the archive url is shown first. This doesn't seem right to me as the url is live. Does anyone have a better option? -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:12, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

My thoughts are that having the archived link come first provides accessibility to the most amount of people and makes verification easier. More context on this discussion can be found here. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:34, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

This is really more of a "how should the citation template handle this case" question, so I've cross-posted it to Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 96#Query regarding geo-fenced reference urls. --PresN 16:41, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi all, for a long, long time FLC has had an unwritten rule for how many items a list needed to have to meet the guidelines for a stand-alone list and therefore be eligible for FL: 10 items. In the past year, however, we've had more and more lists that were almost at ten items, asking for (and receiving) exceptions. These exceptions have been just based on how the delegates felt about it/how much surrounding text there was/whether it was part of a long-running series, though, which is not a fair standard, and has led to shorter and shorter lists, as low as 4 or 5 items, asking for exceptions.

We've been discussing internally how to make a more objective standard, and have decided on lowering the unwritten standard to an explicit written standard: 8 items. These items do not have to be in a single table, but we do not feel that any shorter can really qualify as an FL.

Note if this rule would affect a potential Topic that that WP:FTCRITERIA@3.c. allows for short lists to be included. We welcome discussion on this rule update, which goes into affect immediately. --PresN 15:59, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I would oppose a hard rule. Especially when considering sets of related articles, existing FLs like List of counties in Hawaii and List of counties in Rhode Island (though these older ones are lacking in prose) are still fine to promote – their having fewer items than similar lists doesn't make them worse or unable to be featured. 3(c)'s parts on not being a content fork and "could not reasonably be included as part of a related article" should be adequate. Many short lists should be merged, but many others I would not, such as these county lists. List of administrative divisions by country has other examples of these. Reywas92^Talk 20:17, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

How do you propose we consider what to treat as an exception @Reywas92? My concern is that there would be creep without a hard rule, and the length of these lists is becoming more of an issue that we run into this past year from what I can tell. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:22, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I do see that it's not always clear, but to me it comes down to whether it should be merged to another page, which unfortunately also depends on how many columns or how much descriptive prose there is and what the parent article is like. I've made this recommendation about short lists before myself, an sometimes even longer lists can be merged! I just don't like saying that some pages don't qualify for GA/FA/FL at all so folks might not want to put in effort to improve them even if beneficial. I see this stems from Wikipedia:Featured list candidates#List of World Heritage Sites in Kyrgyzstan. Tone has done amazing work on WHS lists, though I also think the regional lists can be good and we don't necessarily need individual articles for every country so I agree with the sentiment there. Maybe 5 would be better. Reywas92^Talk 20:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Reywas92: This has actually been a general guideline that was followed for a while now, with this just being codification of it. There was actually a few lists recently that this applied to, including another active nomination, so it's not that list in particular for what it's worth. The problem, for me at least, comes down to how we can apply a basic minimum length and what kind of clear and straight forward rules we can create for any type of exceptions that may exist to said rules, if any. There will always be folks who believe their list should be an exception, and it's better if it's codified in a way that doesn't come down to a judgement call on our behalf. I do get where you're coming from, but the length of some lists nominated is something that I've received some complaints about in the past, which is part of why we've discussed codifying it. I don't think we're necessarily stuck on this number, we just need to have some type of criteria that we can apply without it being as much of a judgement call. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:49, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

If we set a hard rule, we could imply that any list that hits that benchmark is automatically suitable as a stand-alone list (i.e., "my list meets the FLC criteria by having 10 items, so it must be a good stand-alone list"). I'm concerned that passing a "minimum item count" threshold will be seen as an implicit endorsement that the list meets WP:NLIST / WP:STANDALONE when the actual guidelines are much more nuanced. I also don't think there is a good way to define a set cutoff for all types of lists. As recent discussions have shown, season articles can list well more than 5/8/10 episodes and still be better suited at GA/FA, and on the flip side as noted by Reywas92, there are short lists that are reasonable stand-alone lists.

The whole point of an FLC nomination is to have a discussion about any issues – if list length is a issue, the discussion should be able to handle it. (See this as an example.) RunningTiger123 (talk) 20:58, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I disagree that setting a requirement for becoming a featured list equates to designating what is good enough to be a stand-alone list. I also believe the number of entries in a list is entirely irrelevant to whether a subject meets WP:NLIST. For example, we saw quite a few broadcaster lists deleted this year that had a lot of entries and yet still failed NLIST. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:09, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree; I just think it's easy for less familiar editors to conflate guidelines for FLC (which the size limit would be) with guidelines for stand-alone lists (which the size limit would not be). I guess if there is a hard rule, which I still think isn't ideal for the second reason I noted, it should be clear this is only the former and not a NLIST / STANDALONE guideline. RunningTiger123 (talk) 22:57, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Comment I also find a hard rule challenging, but wouldn't necessarily be opposed. That said, maybe we carve out an exception for small lists when the topic is widely covered as a specifically named topic. As an example, 'List of counties by state' is a clear topic that is widely covered as such, regardless of size. Basically, does the list as titled and scoped meet (maybe a stringent reading of) WP:GNG? Is it part of a larger topic that makes sense to be broken out as such, even if that means some entries may be short.

Noting RunningTiger123's example of Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Green Bay Packers to win a most valuable player award/archive1, that discussion did lead me to create List of Green Bay Packers award winners and bring to FLC (anyone feel like doing a source review for me?). That said, this example isn't really applicable to the 'List of counties by state' or 'List of World Heritage Sites in country' topics. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:25, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

1. The Featured List process does not have any special sway with interpretations of NLIST or STANDALONE. "It's long enough for FLC" has never been a winning argument for those discussions, and making our rule a hard 8 instead of a soft 10 does not change that. The wording of the rule is "it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists and includes at minimum eight items", not "by including at minimum eight items".
2. We are open to finding a way to make clear guidelines that would allow things like List of counties in Hawaii or List of World Heritage Sites in Kyrgyzstan, but have been unable to find a way that wouldn't apply to, well, any list at all. Almost any list can be thought of as being part of a (theoretical) series - List of Green Bay Packers to win a most valuable player award is part of a "list of (NFL team) players to win an MVP award" series. If anyone can come up with something, we can adjust it. --PresN 21:20, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm looking at List of Iron Man enemies as a possible FLC. It's not in great shape right now (mostly unsourced or primary sourced, the descriptions need to be rewritten, info like first appearance could be added, etc), but I wanted to ask specifically about what type of sources are appropriate for a list like this. I'm looking at things like Comic Book Resources and Comics and Collectibles Near Me. I ask because I feel uncomfortable using these sources, but at the same time they seem to be the only sources that explicitly provide such lists of their own. I asked a similar question at FAC a while back, but I need to know how this applies to lists and inclusion criteria. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

In my mind, FAC and FLC have very different sourcing requirements: that is, the WP:FACR go out of their way to specify that the sources are "high-quality" reliables one, while the WP:FLRC simply say "reliable sources". Both the sources you listed seem generally reliable—they're not user generated, published by establish brands, promoting factual (rather than opinionated) content, and are by seemingly subject matter (?semi-)experts; in my mind, that seems to satisfy the FLC requirements, but perhaps not the FAC ones. Aza24 (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Are you allowed to have multiple FL nominations at once? Also are you allowed to have a FL and FA being reviewed at the same time? History6042😊 (Contact me) 01:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A second FL nomination is allowed, but per the instructions, only after the first has gained substantial support and reviewers' concerns have been substantially addressed. (Generally this means that the first nomination has multiple supports.) I've never heard of any limits on simultaneous FL/FA nominations since those are two different queues. RunningTiger123 (talk) 01:26, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Okay, thanks for letting me know. History6042😊 (Contact me) 01:27, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply